Return in Uniform. Walter Albert Eberstadt and the Beginning of Radio Hamburg

Source Description

After the end of the Second
World War only few Jewish men and women returned from exile to
Germany. The
same is true for the media sector which was to be newly organized under the
supervision of the respective Allied occupation forces after the collapse of the
“Third Reich.”
Walter Albert Eberstadt (1921–2014), son of Jewish parents and a
former student at Hamburg's
Johanneum school, was one of the few Jewish returnees who
participated in the rebuilding of German radio broadcasting. Eberstadt's access pass issued on February 23, 1946 illustrates that he was a
so-called “returnee in uniform,” i. e. a refugee who came back to
Germany as
an employee of the British occupation authorities. His pass was issued by the
Broadcasting Control Unit, the military
authority in charge of regulating broadcasting in the British occupation zone. It
authorized its bearer, “Major
Everitt” – Eberstadt's name during his time in military service – to access
the premises of Radio
Hamburg on Rothenbaumchaussee. In 2000, Eberstadt made this document available as a loan to
the author for an exhibition project titled “Rückkehr in
die Fremde?” Return to a
Foreign Country?. Initiated by the study group of independent cultural
institutesArbeitskreis
selbständiger Kultur-Institute, the
Foundation German
Broadcasting ArchiveStiftung Deutsches
Rundfunkarchiv, and the Foundation Archive of the Academy of
the ArtsStiftung Archiv der Akademie
der Künste, this project presented the
first systematic study of the role remigrants played in rebuilding broadcasting
in the four Allied occupation zones.

The beginnings of Radio
Hamburg

The English-language access authorization to the broadcasting studio in
Hamburg, the
official stamp of the Broadcasting Control
Administration, and the signature of a high-ranking British
officer all show that the rebuilding of broadcasting in
Hamburg
after the end of the Second World
War is a part of British-German history. British troops began the
occupation of Hamburg on May 3, 1945. The
broadcasting house in the Harvestehude district existed since 1931 and had remained largely intact during the war. At 10 a.m. on May 4, it was taken over by the victorious British
troops. Broadcasting resumed the very same day at
7 p.m. The British national anthem and the announcement, made in both English
and German, “Here is Radio Hamburg, a Station of the Allied Military
Government,” „Hier ist Radio Hamburg, ein Sender der
alliierten Militärregierung“, signaled the new beginning of
broadcasting in the British
occupation zone after an interruption of only 23 hours.

A small special unit of the British 21st Army Group made it possible for Radio Hamburg to become the
first station in Germany that was able to go on air after the end of the Second World War. Having
gone back on air so quickly, it was important to decide matters of programming
and to produce daily broadcasts. This was no small challenge, because the
British overall were behind in their planning where their information and media
policy for occupied Germany was concerned. Together with the Americans they had
formed a Psychological Warfare
Division (PWD) that was under the direct supervision
of the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). Its SHAEF
law 191 of November 1944 prohibited any involvement
of Germans in the media in occupied Germany. The end of the
war and the takeover
of the broadcasting facilities meant that there was an immediate need for
action, however. Among the servicemen deployed to Hamburg in May 1945 was Walter Albert
Eberstadt, a 24-year old officer. Now named
Walter Everitt and wearing the uniform of a
British major, he returned to the city where he had
attended school ten years earlier.

Exile biography

Walter Albert Eberstadt, for whom this access
authorization for Radio
Hamburg was issued, was born into a wealthy Jewish family in
Frankfurt am
Main in 1921. In January 1924 the family moved to Hamburg, where his
father made his career as a banker. The son attended the Johanneum school in Hamburg. The family's
years of success and growing wealth were interrupted by the Great Depression before they
were ended by the National
Socialists' rise to power soon thereafter. Assimilated families like
the Eberstadts initially believed themselves safe due to decorations earned
during the First World
War. When the Nuremberg Laws were passed, however, the parents sent their now
14-year old son to England in late 1935. They followed
him a year later. Walter Albert
Eberstadt attended a state school in England until 1939 and was able to study at Oxford for a short time before
he, like many other German emigrants, was temporarily interned as an “enemy
alien” in June 1940. Yet this young emigrant wanted
to do his part for Great
Britain. “I still wanted to be very, very British,”Walter Albert Eberstadt, Whence We Came, Where
We Went: From the Rhine to Main to the Elbe, from the Thames to the Hudson.
A Family History, New York 2002, p. 219.Eberstadt wrote many years later (2002) in his autobiography. He volunteered for military
service and became a regular in a pioneer corps. In 1942 he was given the opportunity to rise to the rank of officer.
After a brief training, Eberstadt, not yet 21
years old, was made a second lieutenant in July 1942. In October 1944
he assumed the name Walter Everitt, which is
the name entered on his access authorization. He remained a German citizen,
however, since the British government had generally halted naturalizations at
that time.

After Everitt was transferred to an information
control unit in the fall of 1944, he received a brief
training at the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and at a training
center near Cobham. Around the end of 1944 and now
a captain, he was transferred to the Allied Headquarters in
Europe,
where he would support the British and American programming of Radio Luxembourg. Everitt, one of thirteen feature writers at Radio Luxembourg, celebrated
the end of the war during
a walk with his American colleague, future historian Golo Mann. A few days later,
new tasks in Hamburg followed. Everitt was
assigned to the 4th Information Control Unit and
charged with ensuring regular broadcasting in Hamburg.

Control Officer at Radio Hamburg

“The British personnel did the writing and broadcasting. In the first weeks there
was no German program staff,”Walter Albert
Eberstadt, Whence We Came, Where We Went: From the Rhine to Main to the
Elbe, from the Thames to the Hudson. A Family History, New York 2002, p.
332.Eberstadt remembered of his first days at
Radio Hamburg. At the
broadcasting studios on Rothenbaumchaussee, he was responsible for “talks and
features,” which meant the entire scripted program. It soon became clear to the
few British officers on the ground, but also to the supervising military
authorities and their planning staff, that in the long run reliable German
employees had to be hired for this program.

Eberstadt became one of the most influential
control officers involved in the search for qualified
German staff. His Jewish origin did not play a role in this process; it was his
knowledge of Germany and the fact that he was a native speaker that were
crucial. Whenever possible, the British occupation authorities deliberately
created teams of broadcasting officers whose biographies differed widely.
Eberstadt's colleagues in Hamburg were made up of
British radio experts, experienced career officers, and Alexander Maass, a German
remigrant who had gone into exile for political reasons. These teams had
wide-ranging authority and hired new staff themselves while testing very
pragmatic forms of the job interview on the ground.

Among the first members of the programming staff who underwent screening by
Major
Everitt were Axel Eggebrecht and
Peter von Zahn.
Both later went on to become well-known radio journalists.
As an editorial duo, they could not have been more different. Axel Eggebrecht was an
independent leftist intellectual without any party affiliation; Peter von Zahn, who had
received a strictly conservative upbringing that had instilled a sense of class
honor in him, had been a military officer and war
correspondent during the “Third Reich.” According to
Eggebrecht, during
his job interview he said to Everitt: “Can we
agree on the wording that you won the war for us? For those who never said yes
to this Nazi regime from beginning to end […]. Now we
can finally speak.”Axel Eggebrecht, Der
halbe Weg. Zwischenblanz einer Epoche, Reinbek 1981, p. 320. In his
autobiography Peter von
Zahn gave a sympathetic portrait of his former
Controller
Everitt. Both men being pipe smokers, they
immediately hit it off with each other and developed a lifelong friendship. “We
were […] close friends. In those first weeks of peace
[…] we became comrades during the beginnings of
building a democratic Germany,” Eberstadt said at
Peter von Zahn's
funeral service in 2001 in Hamburg, and he
continued to say: “Despite all that Peter went on to achieve
later on, I believe he always looked back at the year 1945-46 as the most
productive twelve months of his long working life. And I feel the same.”Walter Albert Eberstadt, Obituary for Peter
von Zahn, August 6, 2001 [typescript], Forschungsstelle Mediengeschichte,
Hamburg.

Emigration as a lucky chance

Everitt's access authorization for the
broadcasting studios at Rothenbaumchaussee was only issued in February 1946. Therefore it certainly was not the first document of
its kind that controllers and all the newly hired German
staff members had to present to the security guards posted in front of the
building. Everitt's pass does not even bear his
own signature, as was usually required. He only used this pass for a short time.
For even before it expired on June 30, 1946 he
quit the service in early summer 1946. The British Control Commission in Germany /
British Element (CCG /BE) had to save
money. Due to their successful policy of finding and hiring German staff, the
occupation authorities were able to reduce their own personnel. Thus Eberstadt's / Everitt's significant contribution to the establishment of a
democratic broadcasting service in Hamburg spanned only a
short period of time of less than a year.

Only few Jewish returnees remained in Germany at the time. By
mid-1946, Eberstadt, too, was eager to return to Great Britain and
Oxford, where he
finished his interrupted university education. From 1948 until 1951 he worked as an editor for
the Economist. He then
moved to the United
States, where he embarked on a career as a very successful
investment banker. In 1970 he became a General Partner
in the investment bank Lazard Ltd. Starting in
the mid-1970s he held many
important positions, including that of board member of the
New School in
New York. He
was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1987, one of many
honors bestowed upon him.

The question why he did not stay in Hamburg and build a
career there must remain unanswered. His decision certainly was not based on a
dislike for the Germans, who had forced him and his family into exile. The most
interesting parts in his autobiography are those where he, a New Yorker by
choice who later became a U.S. citizen, reflects on his positive relationship to
Germany.
They culminate in his confession that for him, forced emigration turned into a
lucky chance, namely the beginning of a fulfilled life.

Selected English Titles

Walter Albert Eberstadt, Whence We Came, Where We
Went: From the Rhine to the Main to the Elbe, from the Thames to the Hudson.
A Family History, New York 2002.Hans-Ulrich Wagner, Repatriated Germans and
‘British Spirit’. The transfer of public service broadcasting to northern
post-war Germany (1945–1950), in: Media History, 21 (2015) 4, pp.
443–458.

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About the Author

Hans-Ulrich Wagner, Dr. phil., is senior researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute and director of the Research Centre for the History of Media. His research interests include the history of public communication through the media, especially questions about media and migration as well as media and processes of communitization.

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License. As long as the work is unedited and you give appropriate credit according to the Recommended Citation, you may reuse and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes.